“Power is not a means; it is an end. You do not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; you make a revolution to establish a dictatorship. The aim of persecution is persecution. The aim of torture is torture. The aim of power is power.” Winston Smith – an employee at the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth in London – skillfully maneuvers the New Language and rewrites the past in a way that serves the Party. A simple cog in the system, he suffocates in this world of absolute control of people by the ever-watchful eye of Big Brother, while the Thought Police are constantly on standby, considering everyone a potential dissident.
From the moment Winston attempts to challenge the grim reality, he will experience an adventure with an unpredictable ending. 1984 was first published in 1949; it described a dark future, with people enslaved by a tyrannical Authority. It remains persistently relevant for the way it outlines the attempts to limit thought and freedom by the authorities, as well as the nightmare of limited capabilities to react to it.
“The most terrifying aspect of Orwell's dystopia, however, is the systematic distortion of the meaning of words, the attempt to remove from words their real meaning, to disconnect them from the feelings they express. The main enemy of the regime in 1984 is reality. All kinds of tyrannies try to make genuine understanding of the world impossible, replacing it with illusions and lies... What looms like a nightmare in 1984 is having lost your very self, being unable to recognize reality itself... 1984 is a sort of manual for difficult times.” Jean Seaton, “Why 1984 may be relevant today,” (from the introduction of the edition).
“The totalitarian state is trying, in other words, to control the thoughts and feelings of its subjects to the same extent that it controls their actions – if not more. The critical question for us is: can literature survive in such an environment? I think the answer is simply: no.” George Orwell, “Literature and Totalitarianism,” 1941, (from the afterword of the edition).
“In addition to being a biting commentary on the abuse of power in the modern world and a timely warning of the potential consequences of state intervention running out of control, 1984 is also a novel about some of humanity's deepest fears and the obsession with self-flagellation and the panic crises usually accompanying such conditions.” D. J. Taylor
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